Al Sharpton and the NAACP know how to pick a winner. This kid was a thug. Eventually probability plays itself out - and you get shot for being a criminal. What's wrong with this world? Justice led to rest in peace. The thug now knows justice.

The police story is that the cop found him at 12:01 pm after the 9/11 call.The guy walks out of the store at 11:54 am.Figure one minute for the 9/11 call to happen and be dispatched.So we're all supposed to believe that the cop found the right black dude in 6 minutes, and since he stole something, shooting was justifiable.Okey dokey...This whole thing smells like a psy-op.

Some Columbia PhD will just coin a new meme, like "institutional racism", and add it to the Liberal Orthodoxy. The poor negro policeman wuz brainwashed into accepting the institutional waycism of the Ferguson PD, leading to this tragedy.

You know, because blacks never have agency, and nobody is allowed to notice they constitute 80% of the criminals in St. Louis.

It's always funny to see where people's alliance falls when sn act is detrimental to multiple points of view. Apparently you would rather hate liberals than be pissed that a miltarized police state can shoot unarmed people at will.

He might have been guilty of strong arming a cashier and robbing a store. The shooter may have been black. It doesn't change that neither shooting blacks if your black or shooting a guy for robbing a store is permissable in this country, or at least it shouldn't be.

I don't need to defend my hatred & disgust of "progressives" to anyone (including you)...mainly because you're too damned stupid to understand how I come about it. Its the same type of stupidity that allows you to jump to the side of of a strong armed robber gobble up everything spoon fed to you by the Propaganda Ministry.

Black or white or right or wrong makes no difference to "progressives" like you who only care about the "sympathy quotient" involved but to what end is the question your kind should be asking yourself. From before the Duke lacrosse case, to Gates to Zimmerman to now Ferguson you need to ask yourself how can "progressives" and the state controlled media get it exactly backwards time after time.

As far as right & wrong, leadership, the militarization of police, I said it all right here long before you dropped this smelly herring of an undetermined hue on the table:

That's not the psy-op part though. Its the 'anonymous' group releasing the dispatch tapes to make it sound like some funny business going on. The fake names of the officers on a CIA hosted website I guess to see who is going to pick up whatever they are laying down. Seems like it was allowed to let happen, by controlling how and when information/disinformation is released. When you hear in the media that the police shot somebody's baby in the back 8 times and then you hear crickets from the police...... What do you expect?

Yeah well Obama don'tg need no stinking son. He is robbing all on hiis own steam. And hitting higher/richer targets. His ambition? To be the first "court jester". Cause we all know who the "court" is.

Need a hint? Look at Fed. and then look deeper. Like back a few 100 years. Like look back. follow the money. Obama is nothing but a willing monkey, and seen as such. Go play golf and feel important. Because you have to be made to feel important. After all you are the "leader" teleprompter of your future fucked-up payback,

Hey James come on down to my hood and bring your cash. We love bleeding heart liberals especially when they give us their money and bleed. We got them 300 pound 6'10'' handsome boys that know how to shake you hand while they take your money. No need to call a cop because the folks will claim that you like the small shop owner was a racist and everyone can go out an loot some more. Hey thanks Barack for immediately taking the right side. Every policeman needs a beating from huge thieving Blackman to learn "restraint". You have to know from the video that the cop was about to get a "courtesy" lesson from our boy Michael. What right did he have to defend himself or protect the shop owner? Don'tmiss tonight's riot it will be fun. Al Sharpton might attend rigth after he steals some more and gets another sanction from Congress. Boy the community sure keeps busy.

What y'all dumbasses need to do is spend some time in a real police state and get to know a) your future b) how they justify it. If you're rich, that's all good. But if you're poor it ain't gunna be great. How to tell if you're poor? Ever once noticed food inflation? Yes? Very high probabilitiy you're poor!

I was curious how the propagandists would swing the public on ferguson, and once again hats off. You brain-dead ‘libertarian’ zh’ers are already buying it wholeheartedly, can’t even imagine the furor on cnn.

What?? He stole candy?? THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING. Bring back the tanks to protect us!!

James you are a bit heavy with the drama. Nobody said bring the tanks back because the guy stole candy. But just like the trayvon thing when they released the photo of him when he was 7 this guy was no angel when you see reality. Did he deserve to be shot in the back as he was running away? No. But how do we know what the real story was? We don't. But it is clear there are two sides to it.

I'd much rather the store owner just have walked behind teh counter and got a shotgun and blown his brains out and saved everyone the trouble.

No. But how do we know what the real story was? We don't. But it is clear there are two sides to it.

What you're referring to is not two sides, they are two separate issues. Conflating the two is being done to justify homicide by the police.

Also, to the seer above in his profile he points out he is living in mendellin. O the irony! The exact type asshole I was referring to. But being a 'rich' asshole expatriate in colombia and benefiting from the police state to be able to live like a monarch is relatively cheap. In us&a you gotta have real money to do that.

Funny that you completely avoided the part about the owner of the store being able to defend himself. If that was allowed to happen then we would not be where we are today. Since we now rely on the police and have taken away people's ability to sort things out on there own we are heading down a dangerous path. That is the point you seem to keep missing.

Funny that you completely avoided the part about the owner of the store being able to defend himself.

Another separate issue.

The only point I find important is whether the police were justified in shooting this kid - and since they won't release the autopsy we can't know for sure - allegedly multiple times. Then, was the militarized response justified? Was the no fly zone justified? Arresting reporters? Etc. etc.

If you want to talk about citizens defending their property sure whatever I have no issue with that. We don't know what happened in the store or the situation with the store owner, but I have no problem with the owner (or clerk / whatever the guy in the video) having a gun if that's what you're trying to get at.

I should underline that as it seems to come up often, I support gun ownership.

you can't separate those two issues. If everyone excercises the right to defend themselves and their property that in and of itself eliminates the police state and militarization of it. Thats the point. The issue is one and the same.

The minute you take the first part away the second one is bound to manifest itself.

If the store employee / owner shot him that would make sense. It seems you're sayingIf everyone excercises the right to defend themselves and their property the police wouldn't need to be brought in. But that is separate from the police action / response.

This is like getting hung up on conditional probability... The second event (and beyond - military response etc.) is independent and has its own specific set of variables not necessarily related to the first even if you're connecting them in your mind.

Let's take an event unrelated to gun rights where we can all agree the original action the police responded to was totally extreme - the Boston marathon bombing. Here we can quite definitevly cut out any direct connection to gun rights while seeing the same outcome. Again, police will argue they were right to respond so heavily in Boston and many people will agree.

There are lots of examples, as guest zh articles often point out it's a larger trend of police militarization. The trend is the issue I'm getting at and the police ALWAYS justify it.

Of course they justify it. WTF are you going to do about it? It's a 1% world now and the police are their well paid mafia, and now they have all the best toys. You think they are going to risk their pension from a stray bullet when they can pull up with a tank and shoot a bubber bullet up your ass? Your civil liberties have been chipped away for years. Nothing you or I or anyone else can do about it now.

I don't get you. You want to rip the libertarians on here and at the same time bitch and moan about the police response being extreme? Really?

You think they are going to risk their pension from a stray bullet when they can pull up with a tank and shoot a bubber bullet up your ass? Your civil liberties have been chipped away for years. Nothing you or I or anyone else can do about it now.

People aren't powerless drones, the PR machine on the .gov side is excellent but not omnipotent.

I don't get you. You want to rip the libertarians on here and at the same time bitch and moan about the police response being extreme? Really?

I don't have an issue with libertarians, I have disagreement with 'libertarians' who think an insane military police response is more or less justified because the kid may have stolen some cigars while being a scary big black guy.